19 DECEMBER 1874, Page 3

The week ending 12th December was as unfavourable to old

people as the week ending 5th December. The average for that week in London rose 33 per cent, and half the excess is attributed to bronchitis, which killed 455 people, against an average of 244 for the same week in the previous ten years. In 211 cases the victims were over 60, and the cause of their deaths is believed to have been the excessive changeability of the temperature. A sudden fall of even 10° is often dangerous, and as we have tried to explain elsewhere, people often expose themselves voluntarily, by mismanagement of their fires, to a fall of 18°.